The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-12-12

came to Wall street in 1869 with small for
tune and prepared quietly and systemat-
| ically to grapple with the financial tiger
whose stroke has broken the backs of so
many. He is a man of rather more than
ordinary business ability, of sanguine tenn
permanent, and like so many hundreds be-
fore him, he thought he might bear
charmed life amid the battles of specula-
ton and win a laurel chaplet in the
Olympian game of finance, even though
disaster is the portion of the many in the
| fierce struggles of the monetary arena and
| victory the need of the few. For time
| his operations were conducted with cir
| cumspection, secrecy and certain measure
of success. He seemed likely to slake his
thirst for wealth in that financial Hell
| icon which bubbles, cool and clear, so far
up those mountain heights of business
genius as to be hopelessly beyond the reach
of the average toiler in the valley below
| toilers without commercial aptitude, and
| toilers with brains to whom no glittering
opportunity ever comes. An ancient phi
| losopher, when asked what a man most
needed in order to win the heart OF
woman, answered, IAN opportunity" The
same is true, to large extent, of wealth.
Many an ignorant numbskull is rich be-
cause he had an opportunity to acquire
wealth, and many a man of ability is poor
because to him no such opportunity ever
came. Many man has shown as much
business skill in making 81, 900 as the par
ticularly favored financier or merchant has
| in making 81 100000.
Alden B. Stockwell after time cast his
keen eyes on the Pacific Mail Steamship
Company as a possible source of colossal
wealth. The stock had fallen very low,
everybody was decrying it, and naturally
he thought that there might be something
in it. He determined first to secure the
control not only of that company but of
the Panama railroad. He bent all his ener-
gies toward his object, staked his fortune
on the throw of dice, for he is a man who
can stand the hazard of the die, and ulti-
mately he succeeded. He became Presi-
dent of both corporations. The scene
now shifts to Washington, that hotbed of
financial intrigue Having formed an alli-
ance with the Union Pa ific railroad for
transcontnental business, Mr.. Stockwell So
cured from Congress a large subsidy for the
Pacific Mail. as well as the passage of a law
which allowed that company to speculate in
its own stock. He loaded up heavily, and
steadily increased his holdings, and the fu-
ture seemed propitious with golden prom
ises. A cloud no bigger than mans hand,
low down in the financial horizon, unnotlced
by the battling speculative world, was the
only portent of coming business hurricane
which was to dismantle strongholds of
mark out wide track of ruin and none
tary desolation. As early as February, 1878,
that black year in the financial calendar, it
became known that his enormous load
of Pacific Mail was dead weight on Stock
wells shoulders, planet on the shoulders
of an Atlas not strong enough to bear it.
The winds of the slowly gathering storm
were already beginning to whistle through
Wall street, money was growing tighter and
tighter, collateralS once considered gilt
edged were scrutinized by bankers with
shake of the head, and Stockwell found it
impossible TO work off his load though thus
far he had met all his engagements. The
storm kept steadily increasing and finally
Pacific Mail came down with a crash from
103 to 60, causing him loss of $4,000, 900.
He now borrowed money, pledging 100000
shares of Pacific Mail to Jay Gould at so,
and settled his heavy Indebtedness by mort
gaging the Howe Sewing Machine Com
pany, with which he had retained bis con-
nection for 81, 100000 Then he began to
pull the wires for the purpose of securing
his reelection as President of the Pacific
Mail, but the election of May 10, 1873, dis
PEELED these hopes, and he was succeeded by
the irrepressble Rufus Hatch. Subsequently
he secured further sinews of war, but he
had reached the climax of his fortune; the
panic of 1878 ruined him, and he has come
down from the mountain, step by step, until
now he is simply small trader on the Con-
solidated Exchange and an unimportant
operator in grain here or in Chicago.
He is a man of generous impulses, and
when he was wealthy he lived like Prince
and his purse was open to all the treacher-
Gus fawners OF Wall street Members of
the Stock Exchange ''struck" him for hun
dreds of puts and calls, and with careless
generosity he granted them He was
always ready to assist a friend who had got
over his head in the speculative waters.
His so-called friends turned upon him in
the day of his trouble after the
manner of "friends" in that golden quarter,
even as 'such miscreants set pitfalls for
James r. Keene, and stabbed him in
the back whom he stood on the verge of rum.
Years ago Mr.. Stockwell remarked to a
friend: ''At first people called me Mr.
Stockwell.' When | came to Wall street
they called me Capt Stockwell' When l
became president of the Pacific Mail they
called me Com. Stockwell' When l lost
my fortune they called me that red-headed
cuss from Cleveland. And so it may al
ways be. The wounded lion goes apart to
die alone unheeded by the herd, and the
wounded gladiator of the Wall street am
phitheatre has fiint-hearted audience to
witness his final struggles.
OSCAR WILLOUGHBY RIGGS